Editorial | Whistleblower's death

Merrell Williams Jr.

Much like Edward Snowden, the worker who leaked a trove of National Security Agency documents, people had sharply divergent views about Merrell Williams Jr.

To Big Tobacco, Mr. Williams was a thief, a clerical worker for a Louisville law firm who copied and stole thousands of documents from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. in the early 1990s that ultimately would prove devastating to the industry.

To others, including anti-smoking crusaders and lawyers fighting tobacco companies, he was a hero and whistleblower who exposed what they called the "Merchants of Death."

But there's no doubt that Mr. Williams, who died last week in Mississippi at age 72, unleashed a stunning cache of material that changed public opinion about smoking and exposed what Mike Moore, the former Mississippi attorney general leading the fight against tobacco, described as the "big lies."

"The three big lies - cigarettes don't cause cancer, nicotine is not addictive and we don't market to kids - all were refuted by the B & W documents Merrell obtained," Mr. Moore told the Associated Press.

The revelations put Brown & Williamson, then based in Louisville, at the center of a firestorm as details from the documents poured forth through news stories in The Courier-Journal and national outlets. Among the findings: Tobacco executives had known for decades nicotine was addictive, despite repeated denials, and that damaging documents were funneled to lawyers to keep them secret.

The documents also were provided to Congress and to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

And within a few years, the tobacco industry agreed to the massive settlement with states over smoking-related costs, a settlement that continues to provide millions of dollars to Kentucky and other states.

Mr. Williams was a complicated character whose motives weren't pure. He initially claimed to have taken the documents to use in a lawsuit against the tobacco industry, blaming smoking for his heart disease.

But the impact is indisputable.

His actions stripped away the "big lies" to expose the truth about smoking and for that, the nation is better off.

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Editorial | Whistleblower's death

Much like Edward Snowden, the worker who leaked a trove of National Security Agency documents, people had sharply divergent views about Merrell Williams Jr. To Big Tobacco, Mr. Williams was a thief,